Parties, Scars, and Swiss Army Knives
by Darth Praxus
Summary: After a wild party, Mark and his girlfriend Donna encounter an oddly dressed man wandering the streets of Gotham. One-shot.


Donna, my girlfriend, is more than a little drunk as we leave the party. She's leaning on me for support, eyes glazed over. "That was—that was great," she slurs. "Real great party."

"Mmm-hmm," I reply. "Now let's get you home. Gives me the creeps, being out here at night."

Yep, there's no doubt about it, Gotham is a bad place to be wandering at night. We have, I believe, the largest number of murders per year in the nation. So, unless you're the Batman, you're gonna want to stay inside once it gets dark. Too bad I don't own a car.

Donna gives a massive belch, giggles, then points at something at the end of the street. "Hey, look, Mark—it's a clown!"

Figuring she's seeing things from the ten beers she'd had, I don't bother to look at first. But then, as some passing headlights illuminate the street, I see him.

They hobo is wearing what looks like a purple suit. His hair is a sickly yellow-green. He's walking in a disjointed, jangly manner that makes him look not quite right in the head. Just another crazy homeless guy. Even so, something about him makes me wary. "I see him, Donna. Just shut up so I can take you home."

I get a horrible sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach when she laughs, and that gets even worse when she shouts at the guy. "Hey, Clown Boy! What's with the hair?"

"Shut up, shut up, shut up," I mutter to her. The hobo half-turns. He has white makeup on, I see, and there's red on his cheeks. It's not all makeup, though—it's a scar of some kind.

Before I can stop her, Donna calls out again. "Hey, Clown Boy—where'd you get the scars?"

The clown starts towards us. I can see his whole face now, and I am terrified. The scars must have been made a knife of some kind; they end where his lips begin, and go almost all the way to his ears. There's dark makeup around his eyes, and he looks like he's never slept. Donna's eyes widen. We turn, and start to run.

The clown's faster. Before I know it, Donna's screaming, and then she's ripped out of my grasp. I resist the impulse to run, instead I turn around, and freeze.

The clown has her, and there's a knife in his hand. She's shrieking. "Shh. Shh!" he tells her. She quiets down after a while. I should be going to help, to do something, but I can't move. It's like my limbs are made of lead.

"So you wanna know how I got these scars? Hmm?" His voice is full of quiet menace, and his eyes are totally insane. Donna whimpers, which the clown seems to take as a sign to continue.

"I was like you, once," he whispers. "Young. Getting high at parties, listening to Green Day and Nirvana. Thinking I was so much _better _than everyone else." The knife slips a fraction of an inch, perhaps deliberately, and Donna squeals, starts struggling. I'm still frozen.

"Shh. Shh." He grabs her, forces her to stay still. "One night, I'm wandering the street, drunk on some cheap wine a friend got for a party, and I see some homeless creep shuffling along on the opposite side of the street. He looks like hell, and I start laughing. 'Hey, you! Yeah, you!' He turns, glares at me. 'Hey, why so serious?', I ask."

Donna is frozen now, like me. She's forgotten to struggle. "He starts towards me," the clown continues, "and I'm too drunk to even be concerned. Until he grabs me, that is. I'm struggling, kicking, punching, and then I remember I have a Swiss army knife in my pocket. I manage to work it out, pull out the biggest blade, and stab him in the thigh."

He's quiet now, and shaking a bit. "He doesn't like that. _Not. One. Bit. _Before I can get him again, _he _has the knife." They're both shaking now, him and Donna. "He holds me down, puts the knife in my mouth. Leers at me, and says, '_Why so serious_?' She gives a tiny scream at the 'serious'—he's practically shouting it, emphasizing the last letter so it sound like there's an extra syllable. _Why so serioussssaaah? _"'Let's put a _smile_ on that face!'

"First he does one cheek. Then the other. Very, very slowly. And then, when he's done, me sobbing, blinded with pain, he says it again. '_Why so serious_?' And then, he takes me into some back alley. And then he..." He trails off, his eyes even madder than before.

Then, ever so slowly, a grin forms on his face. "So, beautiful...why so serious?"

There's one last shriek, abruptly cut off for some reason, and he releases her. _He was just messing with us_, I think, relieved, _he's not gonna do anything..._

That thought lasts as long as it takes Donna's body to hit the ground.

I can see her face from here. She has two long, curved lines of blood running across her cheeks. Her eyes are open, and look half-crazed with pain and terror. The knife, I realize after a moment, is shoved through her throat. _He was doing it the whole time, and I didn't even realize...I couldn't _do _anything..._

Finally, I manage to find my voice. "Why, man? She—she was drunk, she didn't know what she was saying—"

He looks up at me, eyes blazing. "You know, that's what I was thinking after he was finished with me. Sure, I was drunk. Think it mattered to _him_?" He licks his lips. "Excuses mean nothing in this world, kid. There's only one way to live on this earth, and they aren't it."

I'm dead anyway, I figure, so I speak again. "Then what is _it_, huh? What do you believe in?" He doesn't answer for a moment. "_WHAT DO YOU BELIEVE IN_?" I scream at him.

He smiles. "Chaos, my friend. I'm an agent of chaos." Slowly, he starts towards me. And I find, to my horror, that my legs are once again frozen.

I see in the clown's eyes the promise of hell, and I know I'm going to end up like Donna, dead on the pavement. Then, to my shock, he takes something out of his coat, tosses it at me. "Hey, why so serious?"

I catch it instinctively, look at it. It's a Swiss army knife, and I can feel the ancient, dried blood that encrusts the handle.

My heart sinks even deeper than it already was. The freak pulls out his own stubby blade, grins. "You look nervous. Is it the scars?"

He starts towards me again, and all I can do is grip the knife harder and give one last, desperate plea to the fates above for mercy I know isn't coming.

"You wanna know how I got 'em?"


End file.
